Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy. ~Robert Anthony

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. ~Mark Twain

If only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time. ~Edith Wharton

Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place. But there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around. ~E.L. Konigsburg

Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy. ~Cynthia Nelms

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness. ~Robertson Davies

Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad. ~Norm Papernick

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it. ~Fyodor Dostoevsky

What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner. ~Colette

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet. ~James Openheim

Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open. ~John Barrymore

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. ~A.A. Milne

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost. ~H. Jackson Brown

It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness. Poverty and wealth have both failed. ~Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard

Happiness and sadness run parallel to each other. When one takes a rest, the other one tends to take up the slack. ~Hazelmarie Elliott (“Mattie”)

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. ~Margaret Young

Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible. ~St. Augustine

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self? ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second. ~Logan Pearsall Smith, Afterthoughts, 1931

This is my "depressed stance." When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this. ~Charlie Brown

Pleasure is spread through the earth In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find. ~William Wordsworth, 1806

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. ~Abraham Lincoln

Happiness is a form of courage. ~Holbrook Jackson

We must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all. ~Jean de La Bruyere

Tranquil pleasures last the longest; we are not fitted to bear the burden of great joys. ~Christian Nestell Bovee

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. ~Frederick Keonig

Every now and then, when the world sits just right, a gentle breath of heaven fills my soul with delight... ~Hazelmarie ‘Mattie’ Elliott, A Breath of Heaven

It's never too late to have a happy childhood. ~Berke Breathed

The secret to happiness is to put the burden of proof on unhappiness. ~Robert Brault

Happiness? That's nothing more than health and a poor memory. ~Albert Schweitzer

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Happiness is a direction, not a place. ~Sydney J. Harris

Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important. ~Janet Lane

A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour. ~Author Unknown

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. ~Dalai Lama

Happiness held is the seed; happiness shared is the flower. ~Author Unknown

There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness. ~Lady Blessington

The best vitamin to be a happy person is B1. ~Author Unknown

A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness. ~Bernard de Fontenelle

Is it not clear, however, that bliss and envy are the numerator and denominator of the fraction called happiness? ~Yevgeny Zamyatin

A happy thought is like a seed that sows positivity for all to reap. ~Miriam Muhammad

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination. ~Immanuel Kant

Man must search for what is right, and let happiness come on its own. ~Johann Pestalozzi

He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has. ~Henry Ward Beecher

If you search the world for happiness, you may find it in the end, for the world is round and will lead you back to your door. ~Robert Brault

Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone. ~Sigmund Freud

There are some days when I think I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction. ~Salvador Dali

Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it. ~Jacques Prévert

The secret of happiness is to find a congenial monotony. ~V.S. Pritchett

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier. ~Walter Savage Landor

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not. ~George Bernard Shaw

Real elation is when you feel you could touch a star without standing on tiptoe. ~Doug Larson

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness. ~Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, 1954

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years. ~Bertrand Russell

The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment. ~Doug Larson

Cheerfulness is what greases the axles of the world. Don't go through life creaking. ~H.W. Byles

What I'm looking for is a blessing that's not in disguise. ~Kitty O'Neill Collins

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy. ~William Shakespeare

Isn't it cool when the days that are supposed to feel good, actually do? ~Jim Carrey

Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so. ~John Stuart Mill, Autobiography, 1873

How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now, and there will never be a time when it is not now. ~Gerald Jampolsky

We are seldom happy with what we now have, but would go to pieces if we lost any part of it. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

I have only two kinds of days: happy and hysterically happy. ~Allen J. Lefferdink

The happiness which is lacking makes one think even the happiness one has unbearable. ~Joseph Roux

The search for happiness is unlike any other search, for we search last in the likeliest places. ~Robert Brault

As people spin faster and faster in the pursuit of merely personal happiness, they become exhausted in the futile effort of chasing themselves. ~Andrew Delbanco

Happiness is the feeling you're feeling when you want to keep feeling it. ~Author Unknown

Joy is a flower that blooms when you do. ~Author Unknown

So long as we can lose any happiness, we possess some. ~Booth Tarkington

She thinks that happiness is a mat that sits on her doorway. ~Rob Thomas, "3 A.M."

Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy. ~Gretta Brooker Palmer

Happiness is a way station between too little and too much. ~Channing Pollock, Mr. Moneypenny

The happy have whole days, and those they choose. The unhappy have but hours, and those they lose. ~Colley Cibber

The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mode of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change; happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up. ~Charles L. Morgan

Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. ~Iris Murdoch

Happiness is... usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults. ~Thomas Szasz

When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content. ~Niccolo Machiavelli

You cannot always have happiness, but you can always give happiness. ~Author Unknown

The happiness of most people is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things. ~Ernest Dimnet

One joy scatters a hundred griefs. ~Chinese Proverb

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it. ~George Bernard Shaw, Candida, 1898

One should be either sad or joyful. Contentment is a warm sty for eaters and sleepers. ~Eugene O'Neill

A man's as miserable as he thinks he is. ~Seneca

One filled with joy preaches without preaching. ~Mother Teresa

Misery is almost always the result of thinking. ~Joseph Joubert

My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate. ~Thornton Wilder